Leadership change looms for armed group key to Myanmar’s peace process

Myanmar’s strongest ethnic armed group is set for its biggest leadership shake-up in a quarter century, senior sources told Reuters, raising the prospect of a period of instability in a group that is key to Aung San Suu Kyi’s signature peace process. The United Wa State Army boasts some 30,000 soldiers who control a secretive, China-dominated statelet the size of Belgium in the remote hills on Myanmar’s eastern border.